As broadband access and greater computing power continues to become more common place, it is easy to predict that the Internet will continue its trend towards richer media content. In the spirit of Web 2.0 we could also say that much of this content will be user created. Taking into account these facts, it is not unreasonable to think that constructs such as Second Life, defined by its Linden Lab creators as a “3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents”, are the first taste of a more immersive web. Second Life itself has many of the key elements in place for this transition to take place; straightforward commerce system (you could even solve the larger micro-payment problem with Linden Dollars), relatively easy to use GUI for 3-D object creation, and an evolving scripting language.
The key element that has been missing is the seamless interaction with the existing 2-D architecture of the World Wide Web. The Lindens themselves are aware of this problem, and making great strides to overcome this obstacle. Their implementation of the Http Request function in their scripting language significantly increase the power of greater web interaction, and the current development of HTML on a primitive (it is what they call basic objects) will smooth out the process. Once the functionality and power of this greater access is realized, once you can shop as easily in Second Life for products that you might browse on Amazon or EBay, the real difference in potential can be appreciated. Items for sale, especially those with interesting dimensions or functionality, can be more completely modeled in a 3-D environment. The interaction and ‘feel’ of the merchandise can hashed out in ways that even streaming video can not accomplish. Of course, nothing is going to replace the human perception experienced when actually test driving a new car or the smell of the flowers you might be ordering, but the sensory experience can be enhanced beyond its current status. And if the overhead to learning this new environment is low, and you can still do everything that you did before, the change over cost to the general consumer is insignificant compared to the improved results.
The increased linkage with the existing architecture will also allow access to the distributed functionality currently available. Contact with external databases and web script processing improve the applications within Second Life without overstraining the in-world grid. The power of the Metaverse will be realized.
